Mongolia to accelerate its tourism sector

On June 23, 2014 the Prime Minister of Mongolia, Mr. Altankhuyag Norov and the Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism of Mongolia - Mrs. Oyungerel Tsedevdamba officially announced about the participation of Mongolia in ITB Berlin 2015 during a meeting with tourism industry in the government house.

The main goal of the meeting was to introduce about the Mongolia's participation in ITB Berlin 2015 as the partner country as well as other planned actions in tourism industry. In his presentation, the Prime Minister announced the launching of the Mongolia’s official tourism portal - www.mongolia.travel and also urged tourism industry to extensively use official slogan - Mongolia. Nomadic by Nature. The portal will be linked to the ITB Berlin’s website and official tourism information and promotion will also be done through CNN and TripAdvisor. He stressed that one of the priority in the Mongolia's tourism industry development will be online platform.

The PM said that the government is focusing on three industries in next couple years for its economic development - mining, agriculture (stock-breeding) and tourism. Altankhuyag was quite optimistic about the tourism industry and stated that the government is expecting gradual increase of inbound travelers: 600 thousand for 2015, 800 thousand for 2016 and 1 million for 2017, hence the increase of income from these travelers - USD 600 million, 800 million and 1 billion, respectively. PM also shared plans to double the number of international flights to Mongolia.

Mongolia’s tourism industry is expecting to spend about 18.8 billion tugriks for years 2015-2017, out of which, 10.2 billion will be spent on promotional activities abroad and the funding will be done by both public organizations and private companies according to PM. He also mentioned the government's plan to increase the number of countries whose citizens travel to Mongolia on visa-free basis from 17 to 50.

The Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism - Oyungerel mentioned that despite the growth of global tourism industry, especially in Asia, Mongolia did not demonstrate good results. Therefore, “becoming a partner country of ITB Berlin gives Mongolia an advantage to promote itself worldwide” Oyungerel said.